Personal Response

For our upcoming essay, we were given the option between three texts to write about. The text I chose to discuss is the #likeagirl commercial campaign. From the very moment we watched the commercial, I knew that this subject was important to me. I had watched the video before yet when I watched it again I got the same feeling of empowerment and the feeling that of confidence in myself and every woman around me I received the first time I watched the video. Growing up, I would hear the phrase "like a girl" used in a negative way. Whenever I would play sports or do any activity with the boys, I would hear that term. I remember I always stood up for myself and other girls when boys would tease me about being a female. This was because I played on an all girls soccer team in a boys league.
When I was in third grade, I joined an all girls soccer team known as "The Mighty Cheetas." During our first season, we won every single game so our coach moved our team up so we were playing girls a year older than us. During that season, we won every single game as well. So, our coach moved us up one more grade level where we were playing teams of girls that were two years older than us. We never a lost a game that season either. Well, our coach wanted to give us a challenge so she enrolled our all girls team in a boys league. Of course, as one can imagine, there was a huge uproar. All of our parents were extremely supportive and wanted us to play in a more competitive league which happened to be against boys. However, the parents of the boys we were playing were furious! They would complain and say things like, "Girls can't compete with boys, they aren't good enough" or "Our boys will hurt the girls!" Despite all of these negative comments, my team still decided to stay in the league.
I remember our first game, our team walked onto the field and we received a large amount of strange stares. Parents would look at one another and whisper hushed comments. We didn't care though, we just there to play the sport we loved. We lost the first game and it definitely put a damper on our confidence. However, our coach picked us up and the next game we won. Then we won the next and the next. Before every single game, the boys would tease us and talk about how we weren't good enough to play them and it was actually very amusing when we would beat them. Eventually, the word about our all girls team playing in a boys league caught wind and someone decided to make a documentary about our soccer team. The documentary is called Kick Like a Girl and contains photage of our team in action, interviews with our players, boys on the other teams, and interviews with our coaches. The documentary was a huge success and was shown all around the west, in places like Utah, Colorado, and even California. Growing up with this experience, I would always stand up for girls when I heard "like a girl" because I had first hand experience of being teased and picked on for being a girl.  This subject is very important to me and I hate the fact that this term in society portrays women as weak, unintelligent, lesser than men, and it places them on a lower standard. "Like a girl" should not be a bad term and the thoughts that go along with those three words should be positive and empowering to all women today.